While many early learning events are still happening virtually so we can’t take our Early Learning Nation Studio on the...
One way to improve education: communication. For Pinecrest (FL) Vice Mayor Katie Abbott, that means not only regularly connecting with the school board, but also with students. Abbott co-coordinates the Pinecrest Youth Advisory Council, a group of 24 students in grades 8-12 across public and private schools who engage in government, volunteering and education, tackling issues from the environment to preparing for college.
Elliot’s Provocations unpacks current events in the early learning world and explores how we can chart a path to a...
This may be one of the saddest facts you read in a while: One in three moms in the U.S....
Vaccine distribution is under way, but the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic carry on, and the fallout will continue in...
An Electoral “Children’s Wave”
Q&A with Children's Funding Project Founder Elizabeth Gaines
On November 3rd, seven early childhood ballot initiatives went before voters in cities and counties around the nation. All seven...
Mighty, Mighty Bosses
Florida Executives Apply Peer Pressure to Advance Early Childhood
“We as a nation are taking parenting seriously for the first time,” economic researcher Martha Gimbel recently told The Washington...
Most of us have heard of the “summer slide” in which children lose some of the lessons they’ve learned during...
“We’re not going to grow as a nation without a strong system of care,” Gladys Montes stated at the outset...
Those of us who watched too much TV in the 1970s probably remember commercials extolling long-distance phone calls as The...
Why Don’t We Just Do That?
Over Cocktails, Restaurateurs Hatch a Plan for Literacy
Three years ago, Amanda and John Horne, owners of Anna Maria Oyster Bar in Bradenton, Florida, heard that 51 percent of children in their local Manatee County school system couldn’t read at grade level by third grade. They were appalled.
“This was horrific,” Amanda says. “We had no idea that this was an issue.”
Over cocktails one night, Amanda and John wondered what they could do. Their clientele is largely composed of older “grandparent-type” people. They have four restaurants and a mailing list of more than 24,000 customers. What if they could pair children up with a grandparent figure or somebody who cares about them, read with them and maybe instill them with a love of reading?
Mobilizing Communities So All Children Make the Grade
Pop Up Neighbor events, community, collaboration, mobilization
Even without advance promotion, when word got out that the SuperMatt Laundromat in Sarasota, Florida, was offering free laundry all day, neighborhood residents formed a steady stream of customers.
Not only was laundry-and-all-the-fixings free—a boon to low-income families who can ill afford the $35 to $50 a week they spend trying to keep their kids in clean clothes—the food bank was there with abundant food to restock their pantries.
Best of all, there were books—lots of books—and plenty of volunteers to read to children while the adults did as many loads of laundry as needed. When the children left, books went home with them.
